It's Green, It's Mean, It's IVY!

AMBIENCE - SEWARD PARK

[UHLENKOTT] My name is Michelle Uhlenkott, and we are working today to get
invasive ivy out of Seward Park, and we are working in a specific section
and we hoping to get most of the ivy out of that section. I¹m doing it for
my Girl Scout Gold award, which is like a Boy Scout Eagle.

[BLACK] Uhlenkott has enlisted the help of family, school friends and other
scouts from troop 905.

[UHLENKOTT] We have the basic small clippers, and we have some rakes, and
some big lopers. The lopers are more used for ivy that¹s already in the
trees but we are going to be mostly working on the ground ivy with the small
clippers.

[BLACK] This team of volunteers has been mobilised through an organization
called Ivy O.U.T ­ that¹s an acryonm for Off Urban Trees. Ivy is a flora
non-grata of the Washington Native Plant Society. The society set up Ivy
O-U-T last year. Deepa Ghosh coordinates the ivy out project. Surveying
the ivy carpeted sweard park, she says that ivy actually makes poor ground
cover because of it¹s shallow root system. But iunless comleted romove, it
has a tenacity to spread.

[SOT] Ivy roots sprout from roots left in the ground or even you know vines
that are stomped into the dirt and seeds as well. An alien invader.

AMBIENCE ­ SOUND OF TUGGING AT IVY

[SOT] Ivy will compete with the native understory as well as attack the
trees, stunting their growth and eventually killing the tree. Also, it adds
weight to the tree, unevenly distributed weight so in a storm it is much
more likely that the tree will fall over.

[BLACK] Ivy is a formidable opponent. It spreads it¹s web of shallow roots
extensively, creating a raised vegetative umbrella that might be good
habitat.

[SOT] Ivy does not provide habitat for anything except rats.

[BLACK] That, and it¹s good for sheltering od beer cans. With such a list
of negatives, ivy hardly seems to have any friends. Gardening columnist Ann
Lovejoy used to count herself among those who advocated planting ivy
outdoors. She says ivy has been popular in the NorthWest for about a
hundred years.

[LOVEJOY] It is really fascinating to see how much damage it has done in one
century. Of course, back East, where it has been grown for several, two or
three hundred years, it really does not do the same kind of environmental
damgae that it does here because it is not as suited to the climate.

[BLACK] Lovejoy says ivy has long since escaped the gardens where it was
first planted, aided by birds and ivy¹s rampant growth. She now champions
removal of ivy, and the nursery she co-owns will no longer stock it. But
any restrictions on the sale and planting of ivy depends on government
action. The state of Oregon has listed ivy as a noxious weed and a similar
status is being urged in Washington. Lovejoy and others support a total ban
on the sale of ivy.

[LOVEJOY] Well, to me it makes total sense to have a quarantine, which means
you would not be able to bring ivy into the state of Washington. I would
love to see ivy on the quarantine list. That way,nurseries also cannot
carry plants that are on the quarantine list and nurseries would have to get
rid of what they have in hand and not order more. This also means our
growers would stop growing ivey and start growing more of the alternative
ground covers.

[BLACK] Those include Vinca, Wild Strawberry and Salal, she says. A
decision on banning the sale of ivey rests with the Washington Department of
Agriculture. A lobbying effort by ivy opponents is planned for this year.
For Restoration Radio, I¹m Gordon Black.

AMBIENCE FROM SEWARD PARK:
We took out some of the ivy but without the roots sow we have the roots left
over and we have this really long root. The mother root as we called it. It's stuck. We can¹t get it out. It seems that all of the ivy is connected to this one root. We are trying to get out. That¹s our goal by 12.

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